Brand New Start
by Numpty
Summary: Collection of missing scenes from episode 10x03 'Soul Survivor.'


I might be a little late to the party with this, but I couldn't resist adding a few more scenes to the episode. Hope you enjoy!

As always, my heartfelt thanks goes to my super-talented beta Sharlot for casting her eye over this. The final scene is for you, my friend.

The title comes from one of my very favourite Paul Weller songs.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this work of fiction.

o0o0o

**Brand New Start**

"Welcome back, Dean."

Sam didn't try to stop the smile that broke across his face as his heart shed its heavy load and soared. It had worked. He hadn't dared to believe that it would. But Dean's eyes – _Dean's eyes _- were staring back at him, wide and pained and glazed with anxious confusion. And _not black_.

Squirming under the close scrutiny, Dean blinked and coughed, shivering slightly as his sluggish gaze explored his surroundings, stumbling past Sam and Cas to land on his bound wrists. Brow puckering, the elder Winchester took an experimental tug and met Sam's concerned stare. Dean's mouth still gawped, mind not quite tracking, not quite connecting the dots.

Sam started, abruptly ending the awed silence that had held court in the room as he hurried forward. He cursed himself; he'd been so preoccupied with the enormity of what they'd just achieved, riding the high of his relief, that he hadn't thought to get his brother out of that friggin' chair. The chair reserved for monsters and demons and evil. He dropped to a crouch at Dean's side, good hand reaching out to grasp the older man's arm.

"Hey! Y'okay?" He demanded, voice husky with concern as he peered up at Dean. Close up, his brother's face had lost more colour than Sam had first thought, tinged a pallid grey and coated with a sheen of sweat. His cheeks had hollowed out and the skin below his eyes had darkened, making him look gaunt and not quite real. "Dean?" He tried again, this time giving his brother's shoulder a vigorous shake as worry threated to withdraw the promise of his earlier relief.

"Sammy…?" Dean ground out, turning his head to frown at the younger man, befuddled. "What th' hell h'ppened?"

"Are you alright? How do you feel?"

"You…get the plates of th' semi th't took…me out?" Dean's lip twitched, trying a smirk but falling too short. He looked exhausted.

Sam bit his lip. They hadn't known what the risk to Dean would be of using the blood cure, and the younger Winchester had worried on more than one occasion that in trying to save his brother he might end up killing him. He just hoped what they were seeing was the aftermath of the standard Winchester thrill ride and not anything more permanent. "You, uh, you were sick, Dean. And the cure…it took a lot outta you. But we got you better."

"So…the usual," Dean cleared his throat and nodded, his chin dipping low. He flexed his wrists again. "You gonna…uh…?"

Sam let out a puff of air, flustered. "Yeah, let's get you outta here, huh?" He flashed what he hoped was a reassuring grin. "Cas?" He called over his shoulder, gesturing to the angel to help him untie his brother.

Cas, who had been watching the brothers in intent silence, a reluctant caution lingering in the tense set of his jaw, nodded and the bindings instantly loosened, dropping onto the concrete with a heavy thud.

"Thanks," Sam murmured, distracted, as he repositioned his good hand under Dean's arm, preparing to help him up.

The elder hunter's attention wasn't focussed on him, however, but on his old friend. "Cas…your grace…?"

Castiel's eyes darkened as a shadow passed across his features and he lowered his gaze, something like shame flickering there. "No," he answered. "This is not _my_ grace. Crowley, he—"

"Cas," Sam cut across him, shooting him a warning glare. Dean didn't need to be worrying about any of that until he'd had time to recuperate. And Sam planned to _make_ him recuperate. "Story time can wait."

The angel opened his mouth to protest, frowning as his mind worked to extrapolate Sam's hidden message from the literal meaning of his words. "Oh, I understand, you do not want Dean to—"

"_Dean_ wants t' know what th' hell's goin' on," the elder hunter slurred, alert enough to realise that something was being kept from him but not enough to decipher the coded exchange between his brother and his best friend.

"It can wait," Sam repeated, shaking his head tightly at Cas and turning back to Dean. "C'mon, man, let's get outta here, huh?"

Cas stepped confidently up to Dean's other side – always less awkward with the elder Winchester than his younger brother – and grasped his free arm under the elbow. "It is good to have you back, Dean," the angel announced with a small smile that belied the solemnity of his tone.

The elder hunter cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and avoided everyone's eyes. Only when Sam and Cas tugged on his arms did he speak again. "I-I…got it," he protested, trying to shrug them off. "'M not…a freakin' invalid."

Cas looked unsure of himself, letting go of his friend's arm but Sam couldn't stop the chuckle that slipped free. "C'mere you big jerk!" He pulled Dean straight up and into a one-armed bear hug, nearly overbalancing as his brother's unsteady momentum slammed into him. The motion jarred his injured arm but he barely felt it, wrapping his good arm around Dean and holding tight. His brother was shivering, seeming too fragile now in the harshness of the bunker's prison. But they'd deal with that, they all would.

Because they'd gotten him back. Sam had gotten him back. He'd saved his big brother. After all those months of gnawing, consuming pain and worry and not knowing. After all the nights he'd spent in the bunker's library with only Dean's Johnnie Walker and a stack of exorcism rites to keep him company. After plumbing the deepest, darkest depths of his soul. After doing things he didn't know if he could ever come back from. Feeling Dean's arms reflexively tighten around him – carefully though, in deference to Sam's injury – the younger man sighed as it all fell away from him as quickly as the bindings holding Dean. He was free.

"Alright, alright…" Dean groused as he started to pull away, the sound muffled by Sam's shoulder, but the younger man could still hear the smile his brother always tried to suppress. Sam let him take a step back, laughing again as Dean shook his head and gave in, turning to pull Cas into a hug and slapping his friend's back far harder than he should have had the energy to do. "S good to see you, man."

Cas endured the assault stiffly but with good humour. Sam met the angel's eyes over Dean's shoulder, the two friends acknowledging both their fears and their relief. And their thanks.

o0o0o

They were on their way to his room when he saw it. Just sticking out of the wall. Innocuous, as if it had always been there. Just part of the décor. Dean stumbled against Sam's bracing hold, stomach imploding as if the hammer had swung out and dealt him a fatal blow.

"Dean?"

And just like that, he remembered it all.

He remembered the feel of its smooth handle in his grip, the power that had surged like an opiate through his arteries. The irresistible wickedness that had inflamed his senses and intoxicated his blackened soul. The insatiable desire to lift the hammer and let fly, watch it crack the wall of his brother's skull like a wrecking ball. To see blood and brain and bone splitting and splattering.

His mind stuttered, overloaded by sights and sounds and smells…Crowley making puppy eyes at him from across the crowded bar…the karaoke – dear _god_ the karaoke…his blade sinking between muscle, sinew and bone with so little resistance, Lester's eyes popping…the faint, sweaty stench of fear…Anne-Marie staring at him, crushed and broken.

"_What I'm gonna do to you Sammy…Well that ain't gonna be mercy either."_

Shame scalded Dean raw and he flinched away, Sam all of a sudden too close, the memory too vivid. He crushed his hands to his skull, trying to keep the darkness from spilling out, trying to drown out the horrified screams of his tormented, devastated soul. He'd wanted it so badly. He'd _craved_ it. The kill. His little brother.

God…he'd nearly…He'd almost…

_No!_

"Dean?" Sam had moved to stand in front of him, eyes frantic with concern, his voice shaky and only half there. "What is it? Y'alright?"

His lungs had solidified, hard and impermeable like lumps of stone compressing his chest. His arm reverberated with the phantom impact of the hammer against the wall. His Adam's apple twitched with the lingering memory trace of the serrated blade that Sam had held there. His throat constricted as he saw again the helpless defeat in his brother's eyes, the younger man faltering, unable to do what needed to be done. Remembered the triumphant joy that had engulfed him as he'd started to take his victory lap.

Dean's stomach upended itself before he could blink it all away. Unsteady, he started to tip forwards, bitter bile burning at the back of his throat, forcing itself up and out.

"Hey!" Sam caught him before he could nosedive, holding him carefully as he retched with desperate gasps. "It's okay, it's okay. You're okay." Sam's words were a mantra, his voice anchoring Dean in the midst of his roiling, tempesting thoughts.

Nothing came up but the water Sam had periodically inflicted on his demon self as he'd sweated it out in the chair.

"Sam?" Cas, behind him, gravelly voice barking out anxiously. Dean felt his friend grasp his other side, Sam's one-armed hold not quite secure enough.

Dean groaned, the sound seeming to drag all the way from the tips of his toes. "Guh…sonofabitch!" He spat, stomach still on spin cycle.

"He's alright," Sam hastened to reassure the angel, but Dean felt the two of them share a look above his bowed head. "He's just…" The younger man didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to. Dean could see that Sam had noticed the hammer, could see it in the way the lines tightened around the kid's mouth. Sam swallowed heavily, always a sign that some internal cage fight was underway. "He just…" He started again, eyes darting from Dean to the hammer and back again. "He needs…some water, right Dean?"

The elder Winchester nodded at the floor.

"Cas…you mind?" Sam asked after a long, uncomfortable pause.

There was a whuff of air and the angel was gone, leaving them alone.

"'M S'rry," Dean whispered, knowing it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

"It's fine, Dean. We'll clean it up," Sam nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm, like a puppy eager to please. His hair flapped around in large, unruly tufts that only served to reinforce the image. Dean pushed back a wave of fondness, not allowing himself that privilege. He'd tried to kill his brother.

"Not…what I meant." He shook his head, flicking his eyes up to meet Sam's.

The younger man puffed out a breath, his lips thinning. "Dean…"

Cas' return interrupted him, the air stirring again as the angel appeared in front of them, arm outstretched with a full glass in hand.

Dean held his brother's gaze for several elastic seconds before accepting the proffered water. "Thanks," he muttered, taking a long draw and feeling the muscles in his face relax as the cool liquid drove away the acrid taste in his mouth.

"You okay?" Sam asked for the umpteenth time, anxiously watching his big brother for impending signs of relapse. In the past, it would have annoyed him to no end, the kid's mother henning. But after all the crap that had gone down, after thinking for so long that Sam didn't care whether he lived or died, Dean clung to it like the life preserver it was. Even as he felt grimy and dirty and stained from the guilt of what he'd done…and almost done.

"'M fine," Dean choked out, knowing his brother didn't believe it. Knowing he didn't believe it either.

o0o0o

The room felt surreal, like stepping inside an old photograph, a sepia-toned image of a bygone era. Before. And the after was all wrong, out of kilter, Dean always a beat out of sequence with everything else. The scene was just as he'd left it, the 'note' still on the pillow right where he'd placed it, but more dog-eared than he remembered. A congealed, half-eaten slice of pie made the room smell of sickly sweet mould. Photographs – his parents, him and Sam – sat in a crooked pile at his bedside.

Dean felt flat, lifeless as he blankly took it all in, his mind taking refuge in numb indifference. Sam and Cas steered him towards the bed and he let them, silent apart from a soft "ooph" as he flopped down onto the mattress. It still remembered him; moulded to the corpse shape he'd made there several weeks previously. The odd sense of déjà vu hit him again and he looked up at Sam, an involuntary motion he wished he'd been able to suppress when he saw the troubled slope of the kid's brows. Sam remembered too.

The silence grew awkward. Dean in a messy sprawl across the bed, Sam and Cas standing over him, staring down. He wanted to make a crack – something about a three-way, or paying by the hour, or buying dinner first – but he couldn't muster the energy. He let out a sigh and dropped his head back against the pillow, feeling the crunch of the crinkled paper at the nape of his neck. He reached back and pulled it out, examining it from a distance, as though looking at it through a peep hole.

He couldn't believe he'd left something so freakin' corny. So friggin' cold.

Out of the corner of his eye, the elder Winchester could see that his brother was itching to say something. The kid was shifting from one foot to another, swallowing and swallowing again. Debating. Looking at Cas, standing solemnly in the corner of the room. Looking at Dean.

"Uh…Cas…could you, uh, could give us a minute?" Sam eventually broke the spell.

Cas opened his mouth, closed it again and nodded. "I should go and check on…" He half shrugged, inclining his head back towards the door, and then fluttered away before either brother could say anything.

"I miss somethin'?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Uh…no, no," Sam waved his free hand, "just, you know, Cas." As if that explained everything. Then again, maybe it did.

Dean snorted and shook his head. He put the note down, saw Sam tracking the movement with his eyes.

"Dean…"

"What happened to your arm?" Dean cut across him, really not wanting to tread anywhere near the path his brother wanted to take. Besides, this was important. He remembered their conversation in the bar only too well.

Sam huffed and scraped his hand through his hair. "Does it matter?" His voice was strained, like it had been a couple of days ago.

"Yes, it matters," Dean's eyes hit his brother's straight on. Of course it mattered. Would always matter.

Sam's features softened – the girl – and he half-smiled, as though reminding himself yet again that Dean was really Dean. "It's nothing, man. Standard issue demon. Cas and I, when we were tryin' to find you…we got jumped."

"You okay?"

His half-smile blossomed, lighting up the room. "It was a few weeks ago, Dean. I'm fine." He paused, "how about you?" It was classic Sam, tentative, kid-glove. He moved to the side of Dean's bed and lowered himself down with painstaking care, watching his big brother out of the corner of his eye as he did so. As if he was worried Dean would disappear again as soon as he looked away. "You still feelin' sick?"

"No, 'm okay." Which was a step towards the truth; he didn't feel _nauseous_ exactly, but his whole being ached in a way that ran far beyond the physical discomfort. His muscles burned with every movement, his head throbbed and his heart jittered. As if his body was in withdrawal from the demonic juice that had flowed through it.

But none of that compared to the gnawing fear that he'd finally gone too far for Sam to forgive him. That his little brother would want to get as far away from him as possible.

Sam eyed him, head angled with a skeptical tilt. "Okay, okay. You, uh, you feel like eating? When was the last time you ate something?"

"Nah, I'm good," Dean waved a hand with a vague motion, trying to hide the way his stomach cowered at the thought of food. Maybe he did still feel a little sick.

"Yeah, I can see that," Sam bit his lip, doubt escalating into full blown disbelief. "Because you're Dean Winchester, right? Dying? Piece of cake. Turning into a demon? Child's play. Taking the blood cure? Walk in the friggin' park!" His expression was vintage bitchface, complete with flared nostrils.

Taken aback at the outburst, Dean's own irritation flared. "Whadya want me to say, Sam? Huh?"

"I want you to tell me the truth! After everything we've – you've – been through, I just want you to tell me what's really going on!"

Dean sighed, the air whooshing from his lungs in a rush that exhausted him. He averted his gaze, ashamed. "Can we not…put this thing on the slab and open it up right now?"

Sam winced at the analogy, and Dean closed his eyes in self-reproach. "Sammy…" It was an apology, and the kid knew it. "I feel like crap, okay? And I can't…I just–" He couldn't talk about it, wasn't anywhere near ready to face up to what he'd almost done. And he didn't trust Sam not to sugar-coat.

"It's okay, I get it," the younger man started nodding a little too vigorously. "Sorry, I shouldn'tve…"

The atmosphere in the room turned abruptly uncomfortable, both men now tiptoeing around each other, circling. Dean felt his pulse quicken, the walls looming and leering at him. He needed to breathe. Needed space. Needed to stop looking at Sam because it hurt too much. "Uh, you know what? I think I am feelin' a little hungry after all…"

Sam's eyes lit up. "Great, that's great! I'll go get you something. Whatever you want. Burger? Pizza? Pie?"

The hurt settled somewhere in Dean's chest and sharpened. He didn't deserve it, his brother's care, not after what he'd done. "Sure, sounds good." His smile was mechanical and forced, but it did the trick.

"Okay," Sam smiled back. "I won't be long, alright? You'll be okay?"

"Yeah, Sam. I'll be fine."

o0o0o

Dean opened his eyes, awake but not sure why. The room was dark, still. He felt alert for the first time since he'd been cured, his heart steady, ears pricked, muscles tensed. Hunter mode. He shifted on the bed with slow, deliberate movements as he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. It didn't take long before he spotted a shape slumped by the door.

"Sam…what th' hell?" His voice sounded like a canon boom in the silence and the silhouette flinched, accompanied by the dull clunk of something thick made of glass hitting against the wood of the door and the _glug_ of sloshing liquid.

It was several seconds before he got a response. "De-eeaaaan?"

The elder hunter flicked on his bedside lamp and turned to see Sam hissing and screwing up his features. And holding a bottle of Johnnie Walker that was too many fingers down.

"Dammmmmit!"

One of Dean's bottles of Johnnie Walker. The little bastard.

"Sammy are you _drunk_?" Dean wanted to laugh, wanted to split his sides and waste no time in gathering as much photographic and video blackmail material as he could fit on his phone's memory card, but this was all kinds of wrong. Because Sam hitting the booze hard never, ever boded well. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother looking this juiced.

Sam giggled and held up the bottle with a flair of exaggerated sarcasm. "Uh, ye-ah!" He sing-songed, eyes unfocussed. "That…would be…the implication!"

Only Sam could make a declaration of drunkenness sound like a courtroom argument.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face, hoping that when he opened his eyes again this would all have vanished. Just a dream. He still didn't feel ready to have Sam this close. He pulled his fingers away and chanced a peek.

No such luck.

"What're you doin', huh Sam? And _don't,_" Dean held up a hand when Sam opened his mouth, "don't say 'drinking'." He was irritated without knowing quite why and didn't manage to hide it from his tone.

Sam giggled again, but this time it was tinged with something like hysteria. "I just…friggin' _cured_ my brother from being…a friggin' demon. My big brother who…who _died_. Who I _saw_ die right in front of me. My big brother who hunted me down and tried to butcher me with a friggin' hammer…This is friggin' _therapy_, Dean."

_Oh god_. Dean's heart sank to the pit of his stomach, reawakening the nausea from earlier, the burger he'd forced down at Sam's insistence threatening to make a show-stopping reappearance. He battled the urge to fall aback against the mattress and pull the covers over his head. He didn't want to hear this, didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to _think_ about this.

But Sam was here in his room, not hiding from him, not walking away, not condemning him. Seeming to need him. More than he had done for a long time. Too long. So Dean couldn't hide either. Being a big brother wasn't a 9 to 5 gig. He shifted his position, sitting up more fully and leaning back against the headboard, trying to calm his uneasy stomach. "And you were having your 'therapy' with my bottle of Scotch, in my room – in the dark – because…?"

Sam spluttered, flailing his arms and splashing whisky on the floor, oblivious to his brother's pained wince. "Don't you get it, Dean? You _died_! You died and then you disappeared. And after everything I'd said to you…" He shrank back against the door, eyes downcast and hair fluffed up in a way that took Dean back twenty years.

The older man went rigid as he registered Sam's words, dormant hurt bubbling up like magma in his core. And just like that he could hear the words that had ripped his world to shreds, could see the steely coldness in his brother's eyes, could feel again the moment he'd stopped caring whether he lived or died.

"_No Dean, I wouldn't. Same circumstances…I wouldn't."_

He felt himself shudder with the effort of keeping everything inside from boiling over and spilling out. He had to keep a handle on himself. The Mark perpetually prowled the perimeter of his self-control, waiting for him to step outside it. He couldn't go down that road again. He'd nearly done the unforgivable.

Instead, he kept his voice level, not able to suppress a small waver. "W-What do you mean?"

Sam didn't seem to notice, his gaze welded to the floor. He spoke without lifting his head, sounding suspiciously more sober than he had seconds earlier. "I was pissed and hurt, and I wanted to hurt you back." His fingers worried at the Johnnie Walker label, the ticking of nail against glass absurdly loud in the silence. "That's all it was, Dean. You have to believe me. I didn't mean it." He raised his eyes to meet Dean's, earnest and desperate.

"I don't–"

Sam's lips trembled, his eyes filling, waterworks imminent. "I never wanted…never would've let you…"

"Sammy it's okay–" Dean tried to protest, not sure whether he could take another one of Sam's apologies when his own remorse still threatened to eat him inside out.

"No, it's not. I'm sorry, Dean." A tear seeped out but Sam didn't wipe it away, his free hand still gripping the bottle.

"Sam, you don't…" The elder Winchester felt bile at the back of his throat again as his guilt seeped through the lining of his stomach. He closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall with a thump. "I mean, if we're gonna lay them out on the table and measure…I tried to _kill_ you. Would have if Cas hadn't shown up when he did. I'm the one who should be–"

"No, Dean! Wasn't you." There was a shuffling sound and then Dean's mattress juddered and bounced as Sam climbed cautiously aboard.

Dean opened his eyes again and shot his brother a pointed look. "Oh it was me, Sam. Wasn't all me, I'll give you that. But it _was_ me."

Sam shook his head with steady confidence. "No it wasn't, Dean. I know you. And I knew you were still in there somewhere, knew you'd come back."

And Dean felt it, his brother's certainty, his forgiveness. Believed it. The warmth that surged through him was very different to the fiery hurt that had simmered there moments earlier. His smile was soft. "Yeah. I'm back, Sam. And I ain't goin' anywhere, okay?" He reached out to ruffle the kid's hair, grin widening as the younger man scrunched up his features in irritation and tried to bat him away. "How about we get you back to your room so you can sleep this off, huh? I'll kick your ass for stealing my Johnnie Walker tomorrow."

"'Kay," Sam yawned and Dean didn't bother to hold back a fond chuckle, his heart light, relieved of its crippling load.

Pushing away from the headboard and up off the bed, Dean met with little resistance as he pulled the bottle of whisky from Sam's grip and set it on the nightstand. "C'mon," he encouraged, placing a hand under the kid's elbow and supporting him as he lurched to his feet. Steadying them both, Dean slipped an arm behind his brother's back and steered towards the door.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam's voice was muffled with sleepiness.

"Yeah?"

"'M glad you're back."

Dean paused, thinking about the past few years, about how far they'd come. They'd always have each other's backs, and it was time they both remembered that.

"Yeah, me too."

THE END


End file.
